OpenAI yesterday announced ChatGPT Atlas, a new web browser that deploys the world's most popular chatbot directly into your internet experience.
Like other agent web browsers I've tested in recent months, including Perplexity's Comet and Opera Neon, ChatGPT Atlas incorporates AI into your daily Internet experience.
I've been using ChatGPT Atlas since Sam Altman announced it almost 24 hours ago, and my experience with the web browser built for Mac, with plans to come to Windows, iOS, and Android at a later date, has been pretty eye-opening so far.
AI at your fingertips
As soon as you open ChatGPT Atlas, you are met with a minimalist design that is almost too hygienic. That said, for those who want their web browser to look simple and no-frills, Atlas will check those boxes.
At its core, ChatGPT looks like it's a web browser, so if you like the OpenAI design language, you'll be a fan of Atlas from the start. If not, tough luck, Atlas seems pretty bland.
The experience here is quite simple. Open a new tab, type in the large text box in the middle of the screen, and choose to search via ChatGPT, search with Google, or go directly to a website. At first, I was annoyed that I couldn't find an option to set my default search engine, but in just a few hours, I got used to choosing between ChatGPT and Google depending on what I'm trying to access.
Atlas is based on Google's Chromium engine, so you can easily bring all your Chrome search history, bookmarks, and logins into the OpenAI browser, if you choose. It's easy enough to get up and running, and before long, Atlas starts to look like any other web browser you've used in the past.
Look
Where Atlas separates itself from Chrome and works more like Comet and Neon is by allowing you to “Ask ChatGPT” on any web page you visit. By pressing the button on the right side of Atlas, you can quickly ask ChatGPT anything, whether it's related to your internet browsing or not. The world's most popular AI chatbot is just part of the experience and it works very well.
You can reference older chats with ChatGPT because all of your memory capabilities are available directly in Atlas, and you can even access your old ChatGPT chats directly from a sidebar on the left, exactly as they would appear in ChatGPT itself.
Like other AI-powered browsers, Atlas lets you quickly use a chatbot with the press of a button, and as someone who really enjoyed their experience with Comet and Neon, this seems like the perfect way to interact with AI. Want more context for an article you're reading? Ask ChatGPT. Do you need information about another tab you have open without leaving what's on your screen? ChatGPT will fix it. There are many scenarios where an AI chatbot in your browser comes in handy and Atlast thrives in this regard.
All the bells and whistles
Where Atlas sets itself apart from other offerings on the market is its deep integration into ChatGPT. For the millions of people who use the AI chatbot regularly, all those conversations and memories are now directly linked to their online browsing experience. And even better, Atlas has browsing memory, so now you have super-powerful web history at your fingertips.
I can't tell you the number of times I've lost track of a website I'd previously visited and didn't find any information in my search history. With Atlas, that seems to be resolved, and I've been impressed by the AI's ability to quickly find what I've been looking for based on what it remembers.
In addition to having ChatGPT ready to answer any question whenever you need it, Atlas allows you to open feeds directly in the browser, making ChatGPT Search much more viable than ever.
For example, let's say I want to find a good article about Casio's upcoming emotionally intelligent AI pet. I can ask ChatGPT to find me some articles and then click on the source. It sounds simple enough, but in the past, if you used ChatGPT Search for things like this, you'd be jumping between the ChatGPT app and your web browser. This experience feels much smoother than ever, and as someone who barely uses ChatGPT to search the web, I could really see myself doing this more often.
Elsewhere, ChatGPT Atlas has Agent mode, which allows the browser to complete tasks for you while you go about your day, focusing on other things. It works the same as Comet and Neon, although you can choose not to allow ChatGPT to access web pages you're logged into, which seems a little less intrusive on data than giving free rein to your life.
To test Agent Mode, I asked Atlas to create a gaming PC on PCPartPicker based on my conversations with ChatGPT earlier this month, when I was actually deciding what components to buy for my new computer.
I left the agent to his fate and went on with my life, editing articles only to return to a completed task. Having access to AI agents in your web browser comes in handy when you least expect it, but like the other AI browsers I've mentioned in this article, there's definitely room for improvement as bugs are still quite common.
The crux of the matter
My experience with ChatGPT Atlas has been quite positive and honestly, if you are a regular ChatGPT user, you should download the free web browser as soon as you finish reading this article.
OpenAI clearly sees a future where most people communicate with ChatGPT through Atlas, and after using the software, this appears to be the next step for the AI chatbot. Having a web browser built into ChatGPT just works and allows you to browse the web better than ever with the standalone app.
That said, what if you're skeptical about ChatGPT or use it only a few times a week? Should you move your life to Atlas?
I think OpenAI's vision here is to become the go-to ecosystem for your life. The company wants you to be able to navigate everything you do online through ChatGPT, and Atlas is ultimately just the next step in achieving that goal.
In Atlas' presentation, there was an emphasis on data and privacy, and your search history is only used to train AI models, if you choose to allow it. That being said, I can't help but feel nervous about porting my online experience to a product created by OpenAI.
If ChatGPT's nearly 1 billion weekly users move away from Chrome, Safari, and Firefox in favor of Atlas, dependence on AI increases and OpenAI becomes the center of our world. I'm not naive; I know that Google and other tech giants already have access to most, if not all, of my data, but giving it all to a company that is slowly trying to dominate our lives makes me worry about the future.
As I said in the title of this article, if you're willing to give ChatGPT control of your web browser so it can handle mundane tasks for you, answer questions based on your searches, and remind you how you've used the Internet, then Atlas is the app you've been waiting for.
However, if you have any uneasy feelings towards AI and don't want it to infiltrate every element of your life, run away from Atlas. Not only does it show how OpenAI's chatbot can really improve simple tasks, but it also makes a very good attempt at convincing you to embrace the AI revolution.
I really like Atlas, but I don't think I'll be really comfortable using it as my primary web browser in the future. Maybe it's because the AI skeptic in me isn't really sold on the technology yet, or maybe it's simply because I haven't yet come to terms with the inevitable future of the Internet. In any case, Atlas is a big step forward for ChatGPT and I'd be surprised if it doesn't quickly become the main way people interact with AI.
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